Various types of devices have been developed for implantation into the human body to provide various types of health-related therapies and/or monitoring. Examples of such devices, generally known as implantable medical devices (IMDs), include cardiac pacemakers, cardioverter/defibrillators, cardiomyostimulators, various physiological stimulators including nerve, muscle, and deep brain stimulators, various types of physiological monitors, and drug delivery systems, just to name a few. Some IMDs include varying amounts of electronic memory that may be used to store not only device operating and control software, but to store various types of patient- and device-related data. In addition, some of these same IMDs may include signal processing and telemetry circuitry, which allows some or all of the data stored in the memory to be transmitted to a remote computer network or other communication node, and/or the device to receive and store data transmitted to it remotely from a computer network or other communication node, via a communication link.
More recently, the above-mentioned communication link is implemented using radio frequency (RF) communication techniques. As compared to previous techniques, using RF communication generally increases the range over which communication between the IMD and a communication node can occur. Although RF communication is generally safe and reliable, it can exhibit certain drawbacks. For example, RF communication can exhibit multipath fading or distortion, which can result from multiple reflections of the transmitted signal between an RF transmitter and an RF receiver. Such multipath fading and/or distortion can adversely impact the ability to implement RF communication between an IMD and an external communication node.
Hence, there is a need for a system that can compensate for multipath fading and/or distortion that can occur when RF communication is occurring between an IMD and an external communication node. The present invention addresses one or more of these needs. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.